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Shadow's Enigma

by Note Sketch

Chapter 12: 12. Sombra's Night Out

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Pinkie Pie had just now made it to her room at Sugarcube Corner. The night had just set in and the starts were in full view from her window on the second floor. She walked close to the window panel and placed her front legs on it as she leaned on it to gaze at the stars as Rarity's words echoed in her head.

You might want to tell him before it's too late

With a soft sigh escaping her lips, Pinkie began to think back to when she saw him at the library. She told Sombra not to fall in love with her as a joke, but it looks like the joke is on her now that she has some feelings for the dark stallion. The memory of Sombra saving her from the Ursa Major flashed before her and caused a blush to appear on her face. As a quick reflex, Pinkie buried her nuzzle into her folded arms to hide her new complexion.

"Oh this is not what I had planned at all." She said out loud.

"Is something the matter?"

"Oh, nothing really..." Pinkie responded to the voice, but after a second to comprehend what just happened, she lifted her head to find Sombra staring right at her. "Gah! Sombrie!" She screamed out, jumping back from the window frame. Sombra had used his dark magic to create a crystal pillar to take him to the second floor window where he had spotted the pink mare, something she certainly was not expecting. It was now his turn to lean on the frame as he asked.

"You do not seem all together. Are you ill?"

"No...just surprised. What are you doing here?"

"I need a favor only you could provide." This caused Pinkie to blush slightly.

"Only me?" She gulped. "And you had to pay me a visit....in my room...in the middle of the night?" She finished as her eyes began to spin, her mind somewhere completely off the mark.

"You make it sound so dirty Pinkamena." Sombra said waving a hoof. "I need you to accompany me to any establishment where I can get myself something to drink, alcoholic preferably."

Pinkie was quickly knocked back to the real world. "Like a bar?"

"Is that the modern term for a tavern? Then yes."

"Sorry Sombrie, Ponyville doesn't have any of those, we have cider season, but that's not for another few months."

"Such a pity." Sombra said as he placed a hoof to his forehead in frustration. As he did, he flinched from touching the bruise upon his brow.

"Are you okay?" Pinkie asked with a tone of concern. Truth be told, she had been worried about that bruise since he got it, but he did not seem to bother him at the time so she had almost forgotten about it.

"Yes yes, this is nothing compared to....other times I've been wounded. Anyway, I'll be on my way." Sombra said as he began to shrink the pillar he was standing on, but was quickly stopped when he felt a tug at his clothing. A feeling of deja vu befell him as he turned to see Pinkie nervously holding onto his sleeve.

"Let me treat that bruise before you go. The stone managed to rip into your skin a little, you don't want it to get infected."

Sombra looked at the mare for a little while, the care in her eyes was enough to melt away his expressionless facade. Though he did not believe such a small wound could even get infected, he nodded to Pinkie's request. As the stallion climbed through the second floor window, a sense of awkwardness was expressed by Pinkie, something odd for such a peppy mare.

"I'll be right back." She said as she darted out to the bathroom to get the supplies she needed. As she entered the hall way, she noticed how fast she was breathing and how warm her face felt. Why was she acting like this? She was no stranger to getting crushes, but this seemed different. Was it because he was so handsome? Or perhaps the more fantasy reason, that he quite literally swepped her off her hooves and rescued her when she was in trouble. Either way, she could feel her heart gain speed when he was around.

Pinkie didn't take very long to get what she needed. Once in the bathroom she opened the first aid kit to get some rubbing alcohol and some cotton balls for the wound and a gauze and bandage to keep it clean afterwards. Once she got everything she needed she was about to go back when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. The day had been long and all the running around had made her mane have hairs sticking out everywhere, and although it was a usually puffy and bouncy, it had slightly simmered down. She placed a hoof to her chin as she though off whether to tidy it up or not.

《=●=》

Sombra sat on Pinkie's soft bed as he waited. She had taken quite a while and he was bored of doing nothing. A quick look around made it quite obvious who's room it belonged to. The walls were covered in pink, the furniture was pink, and even the picture frames hung everywhere were pink. Since he had returned from his imprisonment, he had developed a habit for reading. Perhaps it was because he stayed at a library or because he had spent most of his time catching up on modern times, but he was itching for something to read right now.

Sombra stood up to stretch his legs, walking around he noticed a small baby blue book. In this pink room, it was kind of hard to miss. Without much thinking, he used his magic to levitate it over to him. It didn't have any sort of title, but it did have a book mark. He opened it up to the page Pinkie had left it on and began to read. He cocked an eyebrow as he read before turning back a few pages and reading again. Sombra then skipped around from the front to the back and all around. A smile spread across his face as his eyes moved across the pages. A smile that stopped when he came to a misspelling. Using his magic he grabbed a near by pencil and began to erase the word to write it correctly. Without realizing it, Sombra had not just began editing the book, but had also climbed back onto Pinkie's bed.

"Sorry I took so long! I brought...." Pinkie began as she bursted into the room. As her eyes found Sombra on her bed, she began to sweat as she noticed what he was doing. "Uh...Sombrie?"

"Yes?" He responded without lifting his gaze from the words in the book.

"What are you doing?..."

"Just making a few corrections here and there. The writing is brilliant, but it could use some editing."

Without another word, Pinkie jumped towards Sombra in an attempted to get the book back from him, but she suddenly stopped mid air as a red aura surrounded her.

"Hey! Put me down."

"As you wish." Sombra responded as he gentle let her down beside him on the bed, as he pointed at a line in the book. "What did you mean by 'He who breaks the earth only to bring pillars of reflected light beam into the dark sky. The shadow that by being dark, can bring forth some light'."

Pinkie blushed as he read that line. After clearing her throat, she looked away as she responded.

"It refers to you..."

"What was that?"

"You..."

"My apologies, I still didn't hear you."

"YOU! I'M TALKING ABOUT YOU!"

A moment of silence fell upon them as Sombra reread the lines from before, as he did, Pinkie tried to hide herself in her front hooves.

"Oh I see, it's a poem about the night the Ursa Major attacked Ponyville." He finally said as he closed the book. He looked over at the bashful mare as she remained buried in her arms. "You know, you're kind of cute when you're embarrassed." Suddenly in a deeper shade of red, Pinkie quickly grabbed the book that had been levitating on it's own and holding it close to her as she retorted.

"Why were you reading my poem book anyway?!"

"I was bored. You were taking too long. I must say you are pretty good at writing poems."

"R-really?" She responded as she looked his way, her head lowered slightly.

"Yes, I was almost surprised with the word choice you used since you don't seem to use them when you talk."

"I like to write poetry...sometimes, when I find a nice rhythm to it, I turn it into a song."

"Is that true? You should let me hear you sing sometime."

Sombra responded nonchalantly, a response that wasn't exactly easy on Pinkie. Her cheeks were way past burning and was now slightly confined to hiding behind her small book.

"O-ok, sure. Sometime."

"Good, now about that treatment."

Suddenly, finding an escape from the awkward situation, Pinkie jumped over to the supplies she got and raised them over her head.

"Oh! I almost forgot about that!" She said as she came over to him. Sombra got slightly closer as he looked at the objects in her hooves. In his time, you treated a wound with water and a rag, bit these items were a little more complex. He made a mental note to read up on medical advancements later. Gently, Pinkie placed some alcohol on the cotton ball before lifting it up to his head. "This might sting a little."

"I am no stranger to physical pa-" His words, however, were interrupted by a sudden shout and jerk of the head when she touched the cotton to his bruise. "Sweet mother of Celestia, what was that?"

"It's the disinfectant, don't worry, the sting means it's working" Pinkie responded with a smile. Sombra on the other hoof held a slightly annoyed look, but did his best to keep still as Pinkie worked her magic. She kept a smile on her face as she rubbed more alcohol onto the cotton ball and cleaning the wound. Finally, she pressed the gauze onto it and place the bandage over it to keep it in place. "There we go." She finished with a gentle smile.

"Thank you Diane." Sombra said as he rubbed his bandage, though it was only a moment later that he realized what he said. He looked over at the mare who was cleaning up and noticed a resemblance to Diane, the crystal pony form his past. Caring and gentle, he couldn't help but feel weird about having mistaken the mares.

"So why is it that there are no alcohol based establishments in Ponyville?" Sombra said, trying to distract his mind.

"Dunno, I guess we just never needed one here. I've seen a lot of them in Canterlot, so unless you wanna take a midnight train ride, you're outta luck."

An exasperated sigh escaped the stallion as he slumped over on the bed. After such a bad reminder if his past, he really something to drown his thoughts in.

"But if you're really really REALLY desperate..."

Immediately, Sombra shot up and looked at her. "Yes?"

《=●=》

"Twily!" Shining Armor called out as he ran to hug his little sister. As requested by Celestia, the train made no stops until it reached the Crystal Empire, speeding up their travel and arriving the very night they had left. Twilight and Agatha quickly made their way to the royal library where all records were kept.

"Elo' Shinin'." Twilight said, her voice muffled by her brother's chest. He was unrelenting when it came to hugs and was not satisfied until he had squeezed the air out of his 'victims'.

"Oh stop that Shining, you're crushing my wonderful sister-in-law!" Cadence said as she jumped in. With a chuckle, the white stallion did as he was told.

"You know, sometimes I think you only married me cause of Twily."

"And if that was true?" Cadence teased as she stuck her tongue out at him, after that she hugged the purple mare in a much more gentle fashion. "I'm so happy to see you. We already pulled out everything from that time period."

"Remind me again what we're looking for?" Shinning said as he grabbed a file from a desk not too far away. He brought it over to himself, but it was quickly taken from him by Cadence.

"Files of the Changeling War, I told you three times already."

"Right, but why can't we just do what we did last time and go to Canterlot and do our love thing?"

"You want us to leave the Crystal Empire alone for a day to go deal with the Changelings? We're suppose to protect it remember?"

"But with Sombra reformed we don't have to worry so much, we can just leave him in charge for a day, it's not like he doesn't know how to run things." Shining argued with a carefree smile. This comment, however, rubbed Twilight the wrong way.

"Shining! For one, Sombra isn't reformed yet, and two, how could you even think about leaving the ex tyrant of the Crystal Empire in charge of The Crystal Empire?!"

Twilight's sudden outburst was met with a chuckle from her big brother as he pulled out a file for her to read before going off and looking for more stuff on the Changeling War. Cadence and Agatha both come to her with a reassured smile.

"I think you might be judging him a little too harshly." Agatha said. "Sure he was a Tyrant for little over a year before Princess Celestia and Princess Luna intervened, but before then, Sombra was a great and humble ruler."

"That's a little hard to believe..."

"Just read the file Shining gave you." Cadence reassured. "I too thought it was farfetched until I read of all the things he accomplished."

《=●=》

"Here we are!" Pinkie shouted out as she and Sombra reached their location. "Welcome to Sweet Apple Acres!"

"Your friend Applejack's home, correct?"

"How'd you know that?"

"It was part of the 'I might be an Apple poem'." Sombra responded as he walked up to the farm house along with his friend.

"You sure memorize things fast."

"I good king must have his wits on him, and his mind open if he is to rule well...but that's a thing of the past." The odd duo made it to the front door and were about to knock when a voice called out to them.

"Well look who we have here. The savior of Ponyville if mah eyes ain't playing tricks on me" The voice said with a southern accent.

"Hey cousin!" Pinkie said as she ran up to her friend to hug her.

"Hiya Pinkie, what brings you and your friend here at such a late hour?"

"Sombrie here says he needs a drink. *of the alcohol kind*." Pinkie said in a rather loud whisper. "I thought maybe we could get something from your stash since you said you had the hard hitting kind."

Applejack looked at Sombra from head to hoof as she leaned back to think. Sure she had lots of traditional apple cider stashed away for those hard days, and sure she hadn't had any so there was a lot of it left, but she wasn't too sure whether to share it or not.

"So Mr. Sombra, ya think ya can handle mah stash of cider?"

"No offence to you, but I am pretty sure your alcohol isn't anything compared to the Crystal Empire's hard liquor."

"You wanna test that theory Sugarcube?"

A smirk spread across Sombra's face as he stepped close. He was known to have a few drinks when he hit some lows in his life, and boy has he hit some pretty low lows. With Pinkie just a foot to the side, Applejack and Sombra stared at each other confident in their alcohol tolerance.

"Gladly."

Next Chapter: 13. His Past Self Estimated time remaining: 9 Hours, 33 Minutes
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